The present invention relates to a recording and reproducing apparatus and more particularly to a recording and reproducing apparatus which provides substantially easier control over the programs recorded or preset for later recording on a recording medium.
A tape recorded of the above-described type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,644.
In conventional video tape recorders for household use, a plurality of programs are recorded on a video tape in the running direction thereof, and a cue signal is recorded at the beginning of each program. When the user wants to reproduce a given program from the recorded video tape, a series of operations need to be carried out: putting the video tape recorder in search mode, fast forwarding of the tape up to the position where the cue signal of the program is located and then reproduced, putting the video tape recorder in reproducing mode, and reproducing from the tape to see if the program reached is indeed the one desired.
With the above-described conventional video tape recorders, the data about each of a plurality of programs recorded on the video tape is actually located at the beginning of each individual program. This arrangement involves one disadvantage. That is, whenever the user wants to see if a desired program is indeed recorded, wants to determine a program to be reproduced, wants to search for another program, or want to overwrite a new program onto a previously recorded program it is necessary to undergo the chores of repeatedly fast forwarding and reproducing the video tape on the video tape recorder in search of the desired program, which requires considerable time, until the desired program is located and accessed.
In addition, the prior art video tape recorders only detect, as program-descriptive data, the position of each program recorded on the video tape when searching therefor. Thus when it is necessary to use fairly complicated data such as timer presetting data, the need arises to write the presetting data in a separately provided timer preset memory.
However, using the above method fails to preserve the data specific to each of the individual video tapes because the timer preset memory is common to all video tapes used. So the presetting data above cannot be used as individual control data program.
If the use wants to control a large number of recorded or unrecorded video tapes or to keep control over a program "series" recorded on a plurality of video tapes, keeping a record of these tapes is a time-consuming and tiresome task. That task involves writing beforehand, onto labels of the video cassettes and cassette cases, control data indicating the contents of the programs recorded on the tape, the recording times for these programs, and the preferences for preserving or not preserving each recorded program.
The more programs and video tapes there are to be recorded or preset, the more troublesome and complicated are the chores involved in writing down the necessary control data, reading the data and making decisions based on the data. An acute need has been recognized to simplify as much as possible the necessary operations and record-keeping activities.
Especially, if a plurality of programs constituting, for example, a serial drama are recorded in a random order on one tape, viewing these programs later in the correct order requires the user to repeatedly carry out the chores described above so as to access each program. These aspects of the conventional devices are an inconvenience that has long annoyed their users.
The present invention relates to a recording and reproducing apparatus and, more particularly, to a video tape recorder for household use.
The typical conventional video tape recorder uses a detection head (called the control head) to detect the position data (cue signal) of any program recorded on the video tape in the running direction thereof. If a plurality of programs are recorded on the video tape and it is desired to reproduce any of the programs, the cue signal of the target program is searched for and ultimately reached.
Thus when any of the multiple programs recorded on the video tape is to be singled out and overwritten with a new program, the conventional video tape recorder reaches the target program by searching for its cue signal, and starts recording the new program onto the tape field containing the target program.
The conventional video tape recorder has the erase head located upstream of the magnetic head for recording and reproducing video signals and the control head downstream thereof in the running direction of the video tape. In operation, the downstream control head searches through program cue signals for the one corresponding to the target program. With the target program located, the erase head erases it sequentially and the downstream magnetic head records the new program in its place.
The fact that the erase head is located upstream of the control head in the conventional video tape recorder involves one disadvantage. That is, where the tape field containing the program to be erased is followed by a field containing a program to be preserved, the upstream erase head tends to erase the position data (cue signal) of the subsequent program field before the downstream detection head can detect the position data thereof. The inadvertent erasure of the position data can cause the program that should be preserved to be erased following the erasure of the preceding program from the video tape.
Household electronic appliances of the above-described type allow the user to record or preset the recording of a least one desired broadcast program. Using the preset data, the appliances execute sophisticated functions of diverse kinds. A number of ways have been devised to make the input of program presetting data easier. For example, switches for setting necessary items are provided as to be manually operated, and a bar code reading means is used to input the necessary data.
Conventional preset data input means have one common disadvantage. That is, these household use devices have their recording-related operations designated in machine-oriented terms. The items required by the machine are represented in characters and/or symbols which are arranged on an operation panel. The user at the operation panel selects and specifies one or a plurality of these items as needed.
The items which may be specified are established as such on the assumption that the user has a certain level of understanding of the functions and structure of the device in question (i.e., a working knowledge of the basics, expressed in such terms as "Recording Start Time," "Recording End Time" and "Input," which are explained in the instruction manual). In other words, those who have difficulty understanding such fundamentals for a device they want to operate may not be able to correctly input the program presetting data required.